Author: foxtongue

“And he decreases the number of clocks by exactly one”

Thank mercy for young boys. Young boys who will drive, at the slightest provocation, many many miles to come see me. On a whim. Then take me for dinner. Then dessert. They are splendid creatures. Rare and exceptional, wicked and sly. Somewhere there is a poem waiting in all this. Thank mercy for young boys.

what colour eyes would your children have?

There is a boy of my acquaintance who is far too old to be considered a boy by most standards, who is also likely coming to town soon. Any day now. There is an annual event he attends here that begins on Tuesday. We used to be close, me and this gentleman I persistently call a boy, (as well as a dove, another pet name misnomer), but there was a falling out which felled us apart, and now I am terrified that if or when he comes, he will not call.

It used to be we would talk every day. Months of it, mostly out of the same city. Logging in long distance every night before bed, turning on the camera just to have company. Reading to each other, waving, singing, writing our lives out like diary entries to be late night tattooed on our skin. Always, as ever, it was the thought of you that held me through. An entire dictionary range of love letters and affectionate inspiration. Calling in the morning, saying good night. We were perpetually in presence, even over mountains. I could not imagine a day without saying his name. When, after a very long while, he finally topped my patience, a significant amount of time after our relationship had smoothed from flame into family, my letter said I didn’t want to talk for only a week. Once that was done, I sent another hello. “I miss you.” After all, some people you can’t but help to continually love. Almost all I’ve received in the year since is silence. Now, somehow, the possibility that he may not even call.

I cannot help wonder what it is I could have possibly done to be so wronged.

ps. by the way, if you happen to come across a copy of Fever Ray, (the new solo album from The Knife’s nice howling lady), fallen off the back of the internet truck, I would like a copy, for it is Good.

Randa just brought me back a keffiyeh from lebanon

Copied from spiderfarmer via James Grant:


Palestinian doctor has house shelled on Israeli news.

If you cannot see the subtitles do the following:
1. Play the video
2. Click the triangle button at the bottom-right corner of the video
3. Click the Turn on captions button that looks like the letters CC.

Israeli TV broadcast a father’s heartbreak Friday night when a Palestinian doctor living in Gaza made a frantic phone call to a newscaster saying an Israeli tank had shelled his home, killing three of his daughters and injuring other family members.

Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish, who speaks Hebrew, worked as a gynecologist in an Israeli hospital. Even as the crossings between the Gaza Strip and Israel had largely been closed in recent months, he had traveled frequently from one place to the other. But he had remained in Gaza since the Israeli offensive began 21 days ago. He gave frequent interviews to the Israeli media on living conditions in the seaside enclave. He spoke of having tanks around his house and of passing through checkpoints; he told Israelis what it was like to be Palestinian.

Minutes away from a scheduled phone interview on Israeli TV 10 with newscaster Shlomi Eldar, Aboul Aish called Eldar’s cellphone, screaming and weeping in Arabic and Hebrew. The doctor’s home had been struck by a shell:

“Oh God, oh my God, my daughters have been killed. They’ve killed my children. . . . Could somebody please come to us?”

Sitting at his news desk for one of Israel’s main evening news broadcasts, Eldar held his phone up. For three minutes and 26 seconds, Aboul Aish’s wailing was broadcast across the country.

Eldar welled up. He put his head down. He looked at the camera. He looked at his phone. He made pleas for helpfor the family, but the doctor kept crying, his voice scratchy, like sand on paper, until Eldar took out his earpiece and walked off the set to try to arrange for help. The newscaster’s bewildered face seemed to capture a bit of pause in a nation that has largely supported its military campaign and prefers not to question its course.

News reports said there had been shooting in the area of the doctor’s house before the shelling. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

Israeli officials permitted ambulances carrying members of the doctor’s family to cross the border to a hospital.

Aboul Aish was a single father. His wife had died of cancer. He made his daughters sleep close to the walls of their home in hopes that would keep them safe if airstrikes or artillery collapsed the ceiling.

“I don’t know how this man will stand on his feet again after this tragedy,” Dr. Liat Lerner-Geya, an Israeli who worked with Aboul Aish, told the Hebrew-language news website Ynet. “He would come to Israel and sleep at friends’ houses for three nights. Even though he had all the necessary permits, they always gave him trouble at the crossings. But he believed there should be coexistence and practiced this in his work.”

After the newscast, Eldar met with reporters. He said the doctor told him that evening “that since his wife’s passing, the girls had been his entire life. He said his eldest daughter wanted to study at Haifa University. Just today another one of his daughters had told him she had gotten her period. ‘In the middle of a war you get your period. You are a woman now.’ ”

She and her sisters are dead. The news spread across Israel’s websites; the video of the doctor’s broadcast quickly made it to YouTube.

Eldar said of Aboul Aish: “It is simply surreal. He is part of this place yet not of it, belonging and not belonging.”

Even so, across Israel the doctor’s anguished voice kept playing over and over.

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com Sobelman works in The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau.

Photo from BBC News, Gaza, Early January 2009, via Warren:

moments when I suck

As a transit reader, I sit as far in the back as possible, where it’s possible to wedge into a side seat, face forward, and slouch properly into my book right under the brightest lights, right in a corner where no one can bump me. She, as a maybe slightly crazy person, got on a couple of stops after I did, and proceeded to begin a monologue of utter, utter bile. A narrative thread thick with fucking pigs, wops the fucking lot of them or spics fucking spics and if he hadn’t fucking said those fucking lies, shit, it serves them right, fucking niggers, fuckers, mother fucking shits.. It’s not like it was even directed outward, her obvious hatred at the entire planet and every multi-celled organism on it, no. Oh no. She stood there, leaning brutishly over her over stuffed back-pack like it was a rebellious child she wanted to smack, talking only to herself. Hissing, whispering, barely above a disturbing murmur.

I tried to tune her out, and mostly succeeded, though there were a few moments when her volume reached out and clobbered my reading, usually with derogatory terms I had to search my memory for. (Like, okay, when she uses the word chink, she is obviously not referring to a plaster crack in a wall, but what the heck is a chug? Answer: I have no idea.) Every time the bus paused at a stop, my spirits lifted with a wild hope that when the doors opened, she would leave, and I would never see her again. More the fool me. Oh hope. Oh fallacy. Instead, she grew more violent with herself, more spirited. As my stop approached, I decided that I would brush past her as quickly as possible because I knew, I just knew that if she said anything even remotely hateful to my face, I’d slug her. It’s not that I’m violent, but more that I wouldn’t be able to help myself. I’m Canadian. I don’t even like to witness littering.

The time came. I pulled the cord, the bell rang, the bus slowed. I stood, collecting myself as compactly as possible, and slid past her, touching her as little as possible. Unfortunately, given her disposition, she’d been crowding into my corner more and more, and by the time I got up, when I say I slid past her, it’s more I squished past her, trying to get by. She turned, “Hey!” and I braced myself, telling myself to be nice, to leave my pointy things in my pocket, to not bunch my fist full of keys. “Ma’am,” she said, (ma’am? really?), “I would appreciate if you would say excuse me in the future, as pushing past people is rude.” Stunned, I replied, “Er, sorry, I didn’t want to disturb you. Sorry.” and exited with as much confused dignity as I could.

“Way to make a stand.” I thought at the corner, watching the bus drive by, “Next time I should set myself on fire.”

SPARK FX ’09

SPARK FX ’09
Jan 21-26

"Ten eye catching classic effects laden films, 20 fascinating speaking events and 6 fabulous days. SPARK FX 09 is bringing films like Alien, Forbidden Planet, T2: Judgment Day and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers back to the big screen. Many will be introduced by historians and filmmakers to give you some insights into the making of these popcorn gems. On top of that Dennis Muren of ILM, Kyle Cooper of Prologue, Dr. Paul Debevec of USC and Jeff Barnes of CafeFX will be speaking at the show, as will dozens of other film, FX and games industry leaders. We’ll have panels on pipeline architectures, rendering human beings, VFX in Vancouver and why practical effects still rock. Come join us for the week at SPARK FX 09 – you’ll be sorry if you miss it!

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad JAN 21 // 7:00 pm BUY TICKETS
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl JAN 21 // 9:30 pm BUY TICKETS
Forbidden Planet JAN 22 // 7:00 pm BUY TICKETS
Alien JAN 22 // 9:30 pm BUY TICKETS
Pan’s Lanyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) JAN 23 // 7:00 pm BUY TICKETS
Terminator 2: Judgement Day JAN 23 // 9:45 pm BUY TICKETS
TBD JAN 24 – Check back soon!
Pleasantville JAN 25 // 7:00 pm BUY TICKETS
The Abyss JAN 25 // 10:00 pm BUY TICKETS
The City of Lost Children (La cité des enfants perdus) JAN 26 // 7:00 pm BUY TICKETS
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers JAN 21 // 9:30 pm BUY TICKETS

as referenced in guitar player magazine (apparently)

Design Police
bring bad design to justice with printable Visual Enforcement Kits.

I’ve started to plan my trip down the coast for That Mike‘s gigs, calling people, asking who’s going to be where, and trying to figure out how to get around.

I really like the idea of spending time out of town on Valentine’s Day, though it means my friends in Seattle might mostly be “busy” elsewhere. Already I’m considering buying another pair of ridiculously skimpy panties to throw at him to celebrate. I’ve never had a pleasant Valentines. One of my better ones involved someone locking me out of the house in the rain. Last year Mike was in playing over in Australia for Valentines, and Stéphane had just died, so I instead of going out, I was effectively single, alone, and in mourning. The highlight of my day was when Ben Peek wrote me into an autobiographical story introduced by a large picture containing the word COCK.

So far things seem to be falling into place. Nick called last night to tell me his van survived the fire somehow unscathed and that he and Nicole want to come as a romantic trip of their own. (That word again.) If it all works out, we’ll drive down to Portland on Thursday morning, love life there for a day, groovy down that night with Mike, drive up to Seattle, groovy with Mike some more, then spend the rest of the weekend drifting happily around Seattle like vacationing techno-hippies, and get back in time for my work on Monday morning. Depending on money, we might even make it down to his Wednesday night gig in Bend, which I find a delightful idea not least because I like the idea of a town named Bend. Seriously. You liked a place so much you decided to settle there, and that’s what you come up with? Bend? I love you guys.